Disqus - Latest Comments for JimStanger

Re: The Secret Behind the Kindle’s Best-Selling E-Books: They’re Not for Sale

Jim Stanger — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 19:25:09 -0000

When I started reading ebooks a decade ago I started with public domain titles mainly because they were free and risk-free to try. Then something strange happened: I liked them and read more. I'm sure many new ebook reader owners are going through the same experience. No worries here. The electronic publishing universe shouldn't tremble just because people rediscover the classics.

If publishers start getting antsy, though, Amazon can always rank their Kindle titles similarly to how Apple ranks iPhone apps: separate lists for free and paid. Keeps one category from flooding out worthy titles in the other.

Re: GO SOLAR: Five Solar-Powered Gadgets We’d Actually Use

Jim Stanger — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:26:31 -0000

I can vouch for the Solio Mag Edition, no problem. It's helped keep my iphone going on many road trips and trails so far while recording gps tracks or taking pictures. The Voltaic backpack looks interesting, but I'd want to hold it and figure out how protected or vulnerable those panels are first.

Re: Prescience

Jim Stanger — Thu, 07 May 2009 02:00:30 -0000

For me it's pretty spontaneous. I'll stumble over or see or smell something, and both memories (the past) and inspiration (the future) will flood over me. They often get channeled, sometimes they are allowed with pass on. What's frustrating is I cannot sit down and make it happen. What I need is a better method of recording transitory thoughts for later. This, again, leads me down the paradox of being too busy recording something to experience it. Circles within circles.

Are you in control of your own message? Who knows. Every post and every image and every thought is you reflecting the light of a different facet of yourself towards the world. In the end, though, we see what we want to see. So which is the real you, the facets you project or our image of them?

Re: Things I viewed recently… | BBluesman/Mark Forman

Jim Stanger — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 02:00:43 -0000

That's something Las Vegas doesn't have enough of that I wish it did: urban murals. Are there many of those in your neck of the woods?

Re: Social Media: just another term for Multi-Level Marketing

Jim Stanger — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 03:20:05 -0000

Heh...that's the endgame I didn't bother spelling out. One does not live on eyeballs alone! ;-)

Re: Social Media: just another term for Multi-Level Marketing

Jim Stanger — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 02:47:06 -0000

It's not cash that's flowing up this time...it's attention. The formula for each seems similar, though. I see so many otherwise interesting people get sucked into this black hole. Formula: your upstream personalities get you in to a new social space with a cool exclusive invite. You can't really use the tool effectively, though, without people to interact with...a downstream. You might get a few friends/co-workers to join up, but the more people you can be friends with the more interesting the space becomes. In order to get these friends you have to get people's attention. To do that you find yourself ingratiating yourself to some personality that's grown a following by being loud and connected. Glomming onto these people gets you followers, only what your followers see isn't you being yourself it's you bring someone else's groupie. Their attention flows to that loud and connected personality.

This must be silly to read. I find it silly and I'm the one typing it. But over the past year I've seen otherwise interesting people succumb to these kind of weird popularity contests. I've been in these spaces for a year now, and I'm having a hard time believing that this was the promise of social networking. I'm hoping it'll even itself out when more mainstream folks move in, but will that even happen if this is what they see when they check it all out?

Re: louisgray.com: Smart People, Stupid Tweets. Fake News Spreads Fast on Twitter.

Jim Stanger — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:17:04 -0000

RIP Twitter - http://www.twitterremembere... No I'm not going to take it. Someone knock yourself out.

Re: My Several Worlds with Carrie Marshall

Jim Stanger — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 02:47:48 -0000

Great interview, you two! Carrie, you've walked a windy and interesting road to get where you are today. And good lord, what kind of hole is that you're coming out of? Looks like it's time to catch up on blogs again! Forman, keep 'em coming...